By Steve Agbota
The Nigerian Content Monitoring and Development Board (NCMDB) and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), have spent over N1.2 billion in intervention projects at the Maritime University of Nigeria (MUN) at Okerenkoko in Delta State.
Speaking with newsmen at the ongoing Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria, (CIOTA) Conference in Abuja, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Engr. Emmanuel Adigio said the infrastructure and other relevant projects in the university are improving through intervention.
According to him, the student population has become a challenge with regards to hostel accommodation, adding that the 1,600 students strength of the University needs to be accommodated hence the reason for institution embarked on the construction of hostel for both staff and students of the University.
‘‘You know you access the school by boats through the waters and that’s a very big challenge and the task of running a federal university is also another challenge. A lot of things have been done in Abuja. So we are always coming to Abuja so all those things are challenging but becauseof the fact that one has a vision and the vision is to see that the basic things needed in a university are put in place.
“Most of the university infrastructure is one major problem, which we are trying to tackle now and we are now building a workshop, which hopefully at the end of this year we would be able to commission, we are trying to build some hostels with the help of local content interventions and from the Federal Government budgets we are also building hostels and shell is also coming to contribute.
‘‘I think shell is about N500 million because the structure that was commissioned is about N500 million and the hostel that is coming up is around that same range,” he said.
He added that the local content own on the hostel is about $250.000 and they are also intervening in the internet and that is about N100 million or there about. He also revealed that Tetfund is doing so much too in the area of intervention as well in the university.